After a diplomatic pause enforced by India's lengthy election campaign, the country will soon have a new government after the ruling Congress party won an unexpectedly decisive victory.  But analysts doubt the change of government will bring a significant change of heart in India towards Pakistan.

Despite Pakistan's offensive against the Taliban in the Swat valley, they say India has yet to be convinced the Pakistan Army is ready to crack down more widely on Islamist militants, fearing instead that it will selectively go after some groups, while leaving others like the Afghan Taliban and Kashmir-oriented groups alone.  While Pakistan wants to resume talks broken off by New Delhi after last November's attack on Mumbai, India has said it wants Islamabad to take more action first against those behind the assault, which it blamed on the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who is expected to remain in office after the Congress election victory, is now likely to come under pressure from the United States to soften India's stance towards Pakistan.  The current stand-off leaves both countries vulnerable to a fresh flare-up of tensions which could torpedo Washington's plans for Pakistan and Afghanistan. It also complicates U.S. efforts to persuade the Pakistan Army to move troops from the Indian border to fight Taliban militants on its western border with Afghanistan.

So how will Singh respond?

Indian analysts are already arguing India must stand up to U.S. pressure to ensure its own interests are not sacrificed to those of the United States. In an editorial in the Times of India, Brahma Chellaney writes that U.S. policy - very much focused on Afghanistan - now runs counter to Indian interests. He argues that Kashmir-oriented groups like the Lashkar-e-Taiba are of little interest to the United States. "Instead, Washington intends to goad New Delhi post-election to reduce border troop deployments, a step that would help Pakistan to infiltrate more armed terrorists into India."

It may not be entirely correct to say that Washington is not interested in the Lashkar-e-Taiba.  The group was cited in media reports as a suspect in the London underground bombings in 2005, potentially making it as much of a global threat as al Qaeda. But Chellaney's comments do underline a traditional suspicion in the region - both in India and Pakistan - about what is seen as a ruthless U.S. focus on its own interests.

In an editorial in The Hindu former diplomat M.K. Bhadrakumar says India must galvanise its regional diplomacy, rebuilding its once close relationship with Russia and Iran, to strengthen its hand. But he also writes that, "certainly, resumption of the composite dialogue with Pakistan ought to be a priority."

The other question to ask is whether Pakistan and India would both be better off talking to each other directly, rather than churning their arguments through the prism of U.S. diplomacy. According to some analysts the two countries came close to a breakthrough on Kashmir in 2007 - a subject explored at length by Steve Coll in the New Yorker in March - but were unable to close the deal after then President Pervez Musharraf became embroiled in political problems that eventually forced him to step down last year.  There has been no official confirmation, and the two countries have come close to agreements on other issues before only to see them fall apart on disagreement about the exact terms.

President Barack Obama has so far been a leader in a hurry. His energetic special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, earned a reputation for being able to bang heads together after he brokered the Dayton peace accords in 1995.  How far can, and will, the U.S. administration go to persuade India and Pakistan to talk peace?  And equally importantly, how well will India and Pakistan manage the U.S. administration?

(Photo: Congress leader Sonia Gandhi with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh)

The government is using secretive prison facilities on U.S. soil, called Communication Management Units, to house inmates accused of being tied to "terrorism" groups. They overwhelmingly include Muslim inmates, along with at least two animal rights and environmental activists.

Little information is available about the secretive facilities and the prisoners housed there. However, through interviews with attorneys, family members, and a current prisoner, it is clear that these units have been created not for violent and dangerous "terrorists," but for political cases that the government would like to keep out of the public spotlight and out of the press.

OPENED QUIETLY AND PERHAPS ILLEGALLY

In April of 2006, the Department of Justice proposed a new set of rules to restrict the communication of "terrorist" inmates. The proposal did not make it far, though: during the required public comment period, the ACLU and other civil rights groups raised Constitutional concerns. The program was too sweeping, they said, and it could wrap up non-terrorists and those not even convicted of a crime.

The Bureau of Prisons dropped the proposal. Or so it seemed. Just a few months later, a similar program (now called the Communication Management Unit, or CMU), was quietly opened by the Justice Department at Terre Haute, Ind.

Then, in May of 2008, a handful of inmates were moved, without warning, to what is believed to be the second CMU in the country, at Marion, Il.

Both CMUs are "self-contained" housing units, according to prison documents, for prisoners who "require increased monitoring of communication" in order to "protect the public."

WHO IS HOUSED AT CMUs?

The CMUs are less restrictive than, say, ADX Florence, the notorious supermax prison for the most dangerous inmates. The supermax holds al-Qaeda operative Zacarias Moussaoui and Unabomber Theodore J. Kaczynski.

CMU inmates stand in sharp contrast to the Moussaouis and Kaczynskis of the world, though.

 

• They include Rafil A. Dhafir, an Iraqi-born physician who created a charity called Help the Needy to provide food and medicine to the people of Iraq suffering under the U.S.-imposed economic sanctions. He was sentenced to 22 years in prison for violating the sanctions.
• They include Daniel McGowan, an environmental activist sentenced to seven years in prison for a string of property crimes in the name of defending the environment. He was previously at FCI-Sandstone, a low-security facility, and was transferred without notice to the CMU, and told it was not for any disciplinary reason.
• And, until recently, they included Andrew Stepanian. Stepanian was convicted of conspiring to commit "animal enterprise terrorism" and shut down the notorious animal testing laboratory Huntingdon Life Sciences, in a landmark First Amendment case pending appeal. The government's case focused on a controversial website run by an activist group that published news of both legal and illegal actions against the laboratory. He was sentenced to three years in prison, and is currently on house arrest in New York City. Stepanian is believed to be the first prisoner ever released from a CMU.

 

VIOLATION OF DUE PROCESS RIGHTS

Attorneys and prisoners have said that inmates are transferred to the CMUs without notice and without opportunity to challenge their new designation, in what seems to be a clear violation of their due process rights.

"No one got a hearing to determine whether we should or should not be transferred here," said Daniel McGowan in a letter from the CMU in Marion, Ill.

Similarly, Rafil A. Dhafir said in a letter to his family from the CMU in Terre Haute, Ind., that he was put in isolation for two days before the move. "No one seems to know about this top-secret operation until now," he wrote. "It is still not fully understood... The staff here is struggling to make sense of the whole situation."

"We are told this is an experiment," Dhafir says. "So the whole concept is evolving on a daily basis."

OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND

The CMU "experiment" limits prisoner contact with the outside world through a list of restrictive policies. According to prison documents giving a skeleton of CMU policies, called institution supplements, they include:

 

• Phone calls: Only one phone call per week, limited to 15 minutes, live-monitored by staff and law enforcement (according to attorneys, this includes the NSA) and scheduled one and half weeks in advance. It must be conducted in English. Other prisoners get about 300 minutes a month.
• Mail: All mail must be reviewed by staff prior to delivery to the inmate or processing at the post office. This means significant delays in communications (and, in my personal experience, letters frequently not being received by inmates).
• Visits: Four hours of personal visits per month, non-contact, behind glass, and live-monitored by staff and law enforcement. It must be conducted in English. By comparison, at FCI Sandstone (where McGowan was previously housed) prisoners can receive 56 potential visiting hours per month. I have learned from attorneys and prisoners that when a CMU inmate is transferred to the visiting room, the entire facility goes on lock-down.

 

For many inmates in federal prisons, phone calls, mail and visits are flecks of light in the darkness. Virtually eliminating all contact with family, friends and the outside world can have a devastating psychological impact on prisoners, and raises serious concerns about basic human rights.

WHY ARE THEY THERE?

It is difficult to discern the rationale behind why some inmates are transferred to the CMU and others are not. For instance, John Walker Lindh, the "American Taliban," is housed at the CMU in Terre Haute. He pleaded guilty to supporting the Taliban and carrying a rifle and grenades on the battlefield in Afghanistan. However, the government announced last month it is actually easing restrictions on his communication.

In the case of Andy Stepanian, he was one of six codefendants, and by the admission of prosecutors he was one of the minor players in the case. He is not accused of any violent crime or any property destruction, and had no disciplinary problems while incarcerated. Stepanian received the second-lowest sentence of the group, and his codefendants are not in CMUs.

Daniel McGowan's notice of transfer to the CMU gives some indication of the government's reasoning. It says that he has been identified "as a member and leader in the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and Animal Liberation Front (ALF), groups considered domestic terrorist organizations."

But in a letter from the CMU, McGowan wrote: "It's funny-I have like 13 codefs [codefendants] + there are 11 other eco prisoners and I end up here."

Part of the explanation for his transfer to the CMU, it seems, is that he is a vocal, prominent activist with a large group of active supporters. For McGowan, his near celebrity status within the environmental movement, along with his continued activism, has become a liability. When I attended his sentencing hearing in Eugene, Ore., in 2006, the judge made a point of criticizing his media appearances and his website, SupportDaniel.org.

Attorneys, prisoners and their supporters speculate there may be legal calculations involved as well. The CMUs have been overwhelmingly comprised of people of color since their inception, and lawsuits have been filed alleging discrimination and racial profiling.

"Throwing a few white kids into the mix makes it appear less like an American Guantanamo," said one attorney who did not want to be identified. "And it also sends the message to the prisoners and to the movements that supporter them. It's meant to have a chilling effect."

CONTINUING A TREND

The creation of secret facilities to primarily house Muslim inmates accused of non-violent charges, along with a couple animal rights and environmental activists, marks both a continuation and a radical expansion of the "War on Terrorism."

First, it is a continuation of the "terrorism" crackdown that Arab and Muslim communities have intensely experienced since September 11th. Guantanamo Bay may be closing. But as Jeanne Theoharis beautifully wrote recently: "Guantánamo is not simply an aberration; its closure will not return America to the rule of law or to its former standing among nations. Guantánamo is a particular way of seeing the Constitution, of constructing the landscape as a murky terrain of lurking enemies where the courts become part of the bulwark against such dangers, where rights have limits and where international standards must be weighed against national security."

Second, it is an expansion of the lesser-known "terrorism" crackdown against animal rights and environmental activists by corporations and the politicians who represent them. This coordination campaign to label activists as "terrorists" and push a political agenda-the "Green Scare"-has involved terrorism enhancement penalties, FBI agents infiltrating vegan potlucks, and new terrorism legislation like the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, and it all has proceeded unobstructed and unseen. There has been a near-complete media blackout on the Green Scare, and transferring vocal, public Green Scare prisoners to CMUs sends a clear message that the government hopes to keep it that way.

"SECOND-TIER TERRORISTS"

When the CMU at Terre Haute was created, Dan Eggen at The Washington Post described it as a facility for "second-tier terrorism inmates."

What Eggen was clearly getting at is that the CMU overwhelmingly held Arab Muslim inmates rounded up and smeared by the government as "terrorists," even though they had not done anything violent or "terrorist."

But the CMUs are not "second-tier terrorism" prisons. They are political prisons. All of the defendants-Muslim, environmentalist, animal rights activist-are housed there because of their ethnicity, their religion, their ideology, or all of the above.

The mere existence of the CMUs should be yet another warning call to all Americans concerned about the future of this country. If we allow the government to continue widening the net of who is a "terrorist," and expanding the scope of what punishments are applicable (and what rights are inapplicable) when that word comes into play, it places us all at risk. The reckless expansion of the War on Terrorism didn't stop with Arabs and Muslims, and it won't stop with environmentalists or animal rights activists.

The power to create and maintain secretive prison facilities for political prisoners is antithetical to a healthy democracy. If there is one thing that we should learn from history, from governments that have gone down this path, it is this: If there is a secretive prison for "second-tier" terrorists, it will only be followed by a secretive prison "third-tier terrorists," and "fourth-tier terrorists," until one by one, brick by brick, the legal wall separating "terrorist" from "dissident" or "undesirable" has crumbled.

After days of delaying a report on an investigation into the Mumbai attacks, Pakistan says India has not passed on sufficient information.

"The concrete evidence was not given from India due to which it would be difficult to make any progress in this connection," concluded a meeting of the Defense Coordination Committee at Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani's House in Islamabad.

The meeting observed that without substantial evidence from Indian it would be exceedingly difficult to complete the investigation and proceed with the case.

This is the second time that Pakistan has postponed the release of the findings, while unofficial reports said that the investigation has linked the attacks to Sri Lankan militants.

The committee was briefed on the progress on the inquiry based on information provided by Indian authorities concerning the Mumbai attacks.

The meeting decided that on the basis of inquiry conducted by Federally Investigation Authority, the case should be registered and further investigation be carried out so that the perpetrators of the heinous crime could be brought to justice in accordance with the law of the land.

The meeting acknowledged that inquiry had been conducted professionally and endorsed the recommendations of the Interior Ministry to proceed with the registration of the case.

In order to complete the investigation the questions which are arising from the inquiry carried out by the FIA need to be answered by the Indian authorities. The issues are expected to be communicated with the Indian authorities.

India, the US and the UK blame the Pakistani based militant group as well as Pakistan's state intelligence agency (ISI) for involvement in the attacks that left over 164 people killed.

  Israel prepares to respond to possible war crimes charges after its soldiers admitted to having used chemical weapons against Gazans.

Israeli government sources revealed on Friday that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had tasked an inter-ministerial team to clear Tel Aviv of possible war crimes charges relating to its three-week-long assault on Gaza.

Israeli Justice Minister Daniel Friedman will spearhead the efforts to coordinate a legal defense for civilians and the military amid world condemnation of Tel Aviv's war on Gaza.

Israel moved close to being prosecuted for war crimes after Norwegian found traces of depleted uranium in Gaza victims, suggesting that Israel used the illegal weapons in its war on the densely-populated territory.

The UN nuclear watchdog said on Wednesday that it would open an investigation into Israel's alleged use of depleted uranium weapons, which are listed as 'illegal weapons of mass destruction' in the Geneva Convention.

The case for Israeli war crimes became stronger on Thursday when the Israeli military admitted that it pounded the Palestinian coast with at least twenty phosphorus bombs during the offensive.

White phosphorus, classified as a 'chemical weapon' by the US intelligence, is a highly-incendiary substance that bursts into all-consuming flames that cannot be extinguished with water, burning flesh to the bone and often leading to death.

Under the Geneva Treaty of 1980, the use of white phosphorous as a weapon is prohibited.

Human rights group Amnesty International has also touched on the issue, saying that Tel Aviv used white phosphorus munitions "indiscriminately and illegally" in overcrowded areas of Gaza.

"The repeated use [of White Phosphorus] in this manner, despite evidence of its indiscriminate effects and its toll on civilians, is a war crime," said Donatella Rovera of the Amnesty International.

Eight Israeli human rights groups have also called for an investigation into the offensive -- which has left some 1,340 people dead and thousands of others hospitalized.

UN special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories, Richard Falk, meanwhile, said Thursday that there is more than enough evidence that Israel committed war crimes in the strip.

According to Falk, the crimes committed in Gaza are clearly reminiscent of "the worst kind of international memories of the Warsaw Ghetto", which included the starvation and murder of Polish Jews by Nazi Germany in World War II.

Israel launched its Operation Cast Lead on December 27 to allegedly defend its territories from Hamas rockets, which were fired in retaliation for Israel's defiance of a ceasefire that had previously been in place.

The UN Charter and international law, however, does not give Israel the legal foundation for claiming self-defense in the case of the Gazans.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says it is "hard" for Israeli troops to spare civilian lives in the densely-populated Gaza Strip.

"It is very difficult in circumstances like Gaza, which is a very densely populated area," Rice told reporters on Friday when asked if Israel is living up to its humanitarian obligations during its massive military offensive in the beleaguered sliver.

During its now two-week military campaign, at least 783 Palestinians have been killed and thousands others have been injured.

To date there are 783 fatalities and 3,300 casualties, the vast majority of whom are ordinary civilians with at least 215 of the deaths being that of children..

On Friday, the Israel cabinet rejected a UN Security Council Resolution 1860 which calls for an immediate halt to the ongoing onslaught against Gaza.

UN aid agencies and the Red Cross have halted their activities in the impoverished strip after Israeli forces targeted a number of humanitarian convoys in the region.

The US House joins the Senate offering staunch support to Israel in its14 days of assault on Gaza, that has killed 800 Palestinians.

"Today, we reaffirm that Israel, like any nation, has a right to self-defense when under attack," said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday.

Also on Thursday, the US Senate said that Israel had an "inalienable right' to defend itself from attacks by Hamas.

"The rocket and mortar attacks from Gaza, which were increasing in frequency and range constituted an unacceptable security threat to which Israel had a responsibility to respond," she said, pointing to Israeli claims that it attacked Gaza in response to Hamas' rocket attacks on Israel.

Since Israel's military campaign on the impoverished strip started two-weeks ago, at least 800 Palestinians have been killed. The dead include at least 230 children and 92 women. Another 3,300 have also been wounded due to Israel's heavy military offensive and a deadly siege on the strip that has caused a severe lack of basic supplies such as food, sanitary water, medicine and fuel.

Ten Israeli soldiers and three civilians have been killed in combat or rocket attacks into Israel.

Pelosi backed the Bush administration position that a Friday UN ceasefire should address the root causes of the conflict to forge a peace that is 'durable and sustainable.'

The UN Security Council almost unanimously approved on Thursday a resolution for an 'immediate' and 'durable' ceasefire followed by the 'full withdrawal' of Israeli forces from Gaza.

Fourteen out of the Council's 15 members voted for the resolution which also demands "the unimpeded provision and distribution throughout Gaza of humanitarian assistance, including of food, fuel and medical treatment." The US abstained from voting on the ceasefire resolution.

Prime minister Ehud Olmert rejected the UN resolution as impractical, saying it would not be respected by Palestinian resistance forces such as Hamas--and as Tel Aviv has made abundantly clear, it has no intentions of abiding by Resolution 1860.

Gaza City, Gaza - The United Nations has protested the Israeli military bombing of Asma Elementary school where 400 Palestinians had taken shelter and three of them were killed, and a second school where 44 were killed, despite U.N. officials telling Israeli military officials that it was a U.N. school filled with civilians.

About 400 people who had fled their homes in Beit Lahiy because of violence there were being sheltered in the U.N.-run Asma Elementary school.

Asma Elementary was clearly marked as a U.N. installation, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency said in a statement Tuesday.

"Well before the current fighting, UNRWA had given to the Israeli authorities the GPS (global positioning system) co-ordinates of all its installations in Gaza, including Asma Elementary School," UNRWA officials said in a news release.

"UNRWA is strongly protesting these killings to the Israeli authorities and is calling for an immediate and impartial investigation," the agency continued. "Where it is found that international humanitarian law has been violated, those responsible must be held to account."

Three men from the same family were killed Monday night from a direct hit by an Israeli bomb on the school that took place just as the three left the school toilet.

Another U.N. facility, the Ash-Shouka School in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, was also bombed Monday night and 44 Palestinian civilians were killed there, according to reports.

Other bomb attacks Monday night struck homes belonging to Hamas leaders, or people affiliated with Hamas.

Israeli warplanes and helicopters have attacked the Gaza Strip for a third day in a row. More than 310 Palestinians have been killed since Saturday, and 1,400 have been wounded. Saturday was the deadliest day in Gaza since Israel's occupation of the territory in 1967. Israel's defense minister Ehud Barak said today that Israel was in an "all-out war against Hamas." Israel has bombed every major town in Gaza, including Gaza City, Khan Younis and Rafah, and is now threatening to launch a ground invasion as Israeli troops and tanks move to the border. On Sunday, the Israeli cabinet called up 6,500 reserve forces. Overnight, Israeli warplanes bombed Gaza's Interior Ministry and the Islamic University in Gaza City. A separate Israeli bombing killed four young Palestinian girls from the same family. Palestinian officials say at least twenty-two children have been killed and more than 235 children have been wounded since Saturday.

Israel: International Community Should Condemn Hamas

Israel says the attacks are necessary in order to stop Hamas from firing rockets into southern Israel. Earlier today, one Israeli died after a Palestinian missile hit the town of Ashkelon. Fourteen Israelis were wounded in the missile strike. The Israeli fatality is the second since the air strikes began Saturday. On Sunday, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said Hamas should be condemned by the international community for firing rockets into Israel.

Tzipi Livni: "Excuse me, I cannot accept something like we call both sides to halt the violence or to stop the military actions. There is no ‘both sides' in this. There is one designated terrorist organization which controls Gaza Strip, which spreads its agenda of hatred, that cannot accept our right to live."

Hamas Accuses Israel of Causing a Holocaust

Hamas spokesperson Fawzi Barhoum accused the Israeli government of carrying out a holocaust of the Palestinian people.

Fawzi Barhoum: "Today is a holocaust and a massacre day that Livni had internationally and regionally campaigned for so she can commit to this holocaust and this massacre. This is a public massacre for our Palestinian people in Gaza. All the casualties and dead are policemen, women, children, elderly and civilians."

On Saturday, the exiled political leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshal, called for a third intifada, or uprising, against Israeli forces. Hospital officials in Gaza say they are overwhelmed with the number of casualties. Hospitals have been unable to get needed medical supplies into Gaza for more than a year because of the Israeli blockade.

Protests against the Israeli attacks have been held throughout the Arab world, Europe and the United States. The United Nations Security Council Sunday issued a non-binding statement calling for "an immediate halt to all violence" in the Gaza Strip and for Israel to open the border crossings for aid supplies.

Neven Jurica, UN Security Council president: "The members of the Council called for all parties to address the serious humanitarian and economic needs in Gaza and to take necessary measures, including opening all border crossings to ensure the continuous provision of humanitarian supplies, including supplies for food, fuel and provision of medical treatment."

US Officials Back Israeli Attack

In the United States, Republican and Democratic leaders voiced support for Israel's actions. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, "When Israel is attacked, the United States must continue to stand strongly with its friend and democratic ally." A White House spokesperson said, "These people are nothing but thugs. Israel is going to defend its people against terrorists like Hamas." The Jerusalem Post reports the Israeli Air Force has been using a new US-made bunker buster missile in its attack on Gaza. Earlier this year, Congress allowed the Bush administration to sell 1,000 of the GBU-39 bunker buster bombs to Israel.